The purpose of this project is to obtain objective data to shed light in our understanding of the two major functional psychoses (affective disorders and schizophrenia): their diagnostic validity, clinical features, course and outcome, heterogeneity, life histories, related illness and characteristics of familial association. The study starts with 525 index patients selected from approximately 5000 consecutive admissions to Iowa Psychopathic Hospital from 1934 to 1944, according to the research criteria of Feighner et al (1972) for bipolar affective disorder, unipolar affective disorder (depression) and schizophrenia. The main goals of the project are: 1) To accomplish a 35 year follow-up of these 525 index patients; 2) To personally interview all living first-degree relatives residing within a 300 mile radius to Iowa City or the near vicinity of any index patient. The Iowa Structured Psychiatric Interview (ISPI) was developed specifically for this project. The interview of both index patients and their relatives will be conducted without knowledge of the index's research diagnosis. A stratified random sample of 160 non-psychiatric control subjects and their first degree relatives will also be followed-up and interviewed blindly. These control subjects were selected from admissions to the Department of Surgery, University General Hospital during the same time period as the 525 psychiatric admissions, for the diagnoses of appendectomy and of herniorrhaphy. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Tsuang MT and Woolson RF (1977): Mortality in patients with schizophrenia, mania, depression and surgical conditions: A comparison with general population mortality. Brit J Psychiat 130:162-166. Tsuang MT: Familial subtyping of schizophrenia and affective disorders. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychopathological Association, New York City, New York, March 1977. In press, Raven Press, New York.